Fortunately, all the cargo strapped to Muppin didn’t suffer the same fate as Cinzy’s hip bag. Since the huge rock echidna was loaded up with most of our supplies, it would’ve been a disaster to lose all the dried herbs, chopped roots, flowers, oils, and other solvents for all my Healer needs. The rest of it, including a lot of the tents and cookware, food and such, we could rely on the Marshins from Slinktickle.

  “What do you think of Slinktickle?” the Marshin with me asked. This one was definitely a female, lithe and sinuous and not at all human. I had to keep my eyes on the vilge. No erections, I told myself.

  Luckily, or unluckily perhaps, the name of the vilge snapped me out of whatever horny thoughts I might otherwise have.

  “It is a delight,” I told her. “You have mountains, marshnd, fields and forest. I don’t know what else I could ask for.”

  She seemed very pleased by this, and smiled. “I am Vellenia.”

  “What a lovely name. Vellenia. I have several names, but my friends call me Fletcher,” I said.

  “Does that make us friends?” the beautiful creature asked.

  I sure hoped so. “I hope we will grow to be friends, yes,” I said.

  “For now, while we are not yet friends, what shall I call you instead?” she asked.

  “Uhh…” I had hoped she would simply call me Fletcher, and I blushed. Now I had boxed myself into a stupid corner here, all because I was walking around nude in public, and flustered to be talking to one gorgeous nude figure while dozens of other gorgeous nude figures strolled nearby as though nothing was wrong. “Chris, or Christopher will be perfect.”

  “Chrisor Christopher, we are well met,” Vellenia said. “I will be your guide here.”

  More introductions were made, and I quickly lost track of all the names. We passed several more rge buildings made of wood, while we walked along the rge decking they’d constructed around them, and then on the bridges as well. This was more complicated with our bags unable to go on our backs.

  “We have had to make do with some modifications to our lives since clothing is no longer an option,” Vellenia told us. “Those baskets used to go on backs, but we must carry them in the boats now. We didn’t use the boats, before, either, but we need a series of mobile ptforms on which to store food and materials. Since we cannot wear containers…” She shrugged.

  Cinzy moved quickly from her pce in the procession and grabbed my hand. “This situation with the disappearing clothes,” she said. “I don’t mean to be intrusive, but our expedition leader here is a Healer, so we are at your disposal if you need help in such a matter.”

  The native’s eyes widened at me. “A Healer? Not many of the humans who have come through here have been Healers. That is splendid news. Splendid!”

  Vellenia grabbed my hand in both of hers and pulled me out of the group. Cinzy made a disheartened sound and stayed with me.

  “What’s going on?”

  “We will need your expertise this moment!” Vellenia said. “I’m certain the elders will be most pleased to learn you are helping to heal our afflicted.

  I wondered just what I’d gotten myself into, but quickly turned to Cinzy. “Please meet with the elders and use your abilities to secure us a pce here, along with trying to figure out what issues the people here are having.”

  “B-but—”

  “I’ll be fine. I’ll take Regina and Isabelle with me,” I said, nodding towards the two of them. “Isabelle for protection I’m sure I don’t need, Regina for getting supplies off Muppin, wherever she’s being kept.” I didn’t know how well Cinzy could detect falsehoods with the social skills she had, so I went with legitimate reasons, even if they weren’t the full ones. I didn’t want to let on that they had abilities gifted to them by my sex powers, and could actually help a lot more than any of the others.

  “Take Fairy Poppins with you,” Cinzy said.

  “Happily,” I said, not certain how the tiny fairy could be of service, but I wasn’t going to say no to more help. Right now I’d have to regard her as a potential spy in my midst, as much as I didn’t like that idea.

  Regina fell out of line without trouble, but Isabelle had a lingering gnce to share with Ivy for a moment before joining me. Sometime during our weird naked procession, Regina had had the genius idea to pull her hair forward on both sides and use it to cover her nipples. Isabelle couldn’t do that, and had to carry her pack in hand rather than sling it over her shoulders. She was fully exposed, all pink and sky blue cotton candy skin shot through with swirling pinstripes of white and metallic silver. Regina looked just as yummy, with her freckles slowly morphing into flowers on her skin. I noted that her irises weren’t right now, or weren’t normal anyway. I couldn’t get a closer look without making it awkward for everyone.

  “Ladies, thank you for joining me,” I said, with a heavy sigh. “I’m hoping we can work out this forced nudity situation in a hurry. Until that happens, I’m sorry in advance for my eyes roaming where they shouldn’t.”

  Regina snorted ughter. “Oh you are, are you? Well I’m not sorry in advance for looking at your hanging dong.”

  Isabelle gasped and followed that up with a ugh.

  So, she was going to continue pying the adversarial role in public. I doubted she was trying to make me upset for real… no. There was only the tiniest of chances that Isabelle knew about Regina and Tara, and an even slimmer chance Isabelle had gone to her with that knowledge, then confessed to having sex with me.

  No way. I was being paranoid… probably.

  “I’m saying that occasionally I may make a mistake and not look you in the eyes, and I’m sorry about that.”

  “And I’m saying your wang is just flopping around down there, and your bush is all green,” Regina said with a ugh. Isabelle joined in the ughter. Thankfully we were away from the main group and out of earshot.

  “I… am… gd we have an understanding?” I tried.

  She folded her arms. “That’s correct.”

  “Oh my gods,” Isabelle snorted.

  “He’s a big softie,” Regina told her. “Don’t worry about him.”

  “Are you saying I’m not hard?” I challenged.

  “Super unprofessional!” Isabelle said, voice strained and eyes bulging.

  “I would think so!” Regina agreed. “Go put some clothes on, you wanger hanger.”

  “You put some clothes on, sparkle freckle.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand,” Vellenia said, leading us across one of the widest and nicest of the pnk bridges. This one had handrails and everything. You could almost forget the marsh was a good eight feet below us. “Could you kindly inform me of what ‘wanger hanger’ and ‘sparkle freckle’ mean? It sounds as though the group is experiencing some travel tension. And since I know that you were brought off course by the Great Guanelzia, your discomfort must be the cause of friction between members.”

  “Our expedition leader has a bit of a hormone imbance,” Regina said.

  “Hormone?”

  My mouth dropped open and I stared at her. Isabelle was following suit.

  “He’s constantly thinking about mating,” she went on. “It’s sad really. Interferes with his work and everything.”

  “I do n—”

  Vellenia regarded me, staring directly down at my crotch. “Is that so?”

  “Vile rumors, and unfounded,” I decred.

  Regina shrugged, eyebrows raised, with Isabelle staring in wide-eyed amazement the whole time. I’d nearly forgotten about Fairy Poppins, who was bobbing up and down, clutching her tiny sides and kicking her tiny legs while she ughed. “Says the person who just apologized in advance for perving on us.”

  “Worry not,” Vellenia said to me seriously. “If the need arises, I or another Marshin will help take care of these urges in order for you to complete your task as a Healer in our vilge.”

  Now it was Regina’s turn to gape in amazement. When she said ‘take care of those urges’ did she really mean what I thought she meant?

  “I don’t know what to say to that,” I said quite truthfully. “Thank… you?”

  The beautiful creature pced a mint green hand on my shoulder. “I will attempt not to rouse your hormone, Christopher, but do let me know if the imbance becomes too much.” She seemed to realize that physical touch might ‘rouse my hormone’ and snatched it away as though she’d touched a hot frying pan.

  We psed into perhaps the most uncomfortable silence I’d ever been a part of. The only thing that came close was when I brought a girl over for a group project in high school, and my mother had to ask me if she and I were having sex. And if so, did I need her to buy any condoms?

  I was so happy to have forgotten that little horror-stravaganza from when I was seventeen.

  “I’m so sorry,” Regina whispered when we got moving again.

  I just looked at her, amazed. She had apparently gotten me all the ‘relief’ I could ask for, quite by accident. Looking into her eyes now, I could more clearly see they weren’t perfectly circur any longer. Her irises were flower shaped.

  “It’s fine,” I told her quietly. “We’re here, naked, in a vilge full of naked Nakamamon, and I don’t have the first clue of what’s going on. So let’s take it easy with the practical jokes for just a moment here.”

  “Okay,” she said quietly, like I’d just kicked Tweedle Dee. Her companion nuzzled into her open hand and she turned to the flower fox for comfort. She seemed distinctly embarrassed, as well she should.

  The building they brought me into was enormous, a long house in shape and size. It had windows cut and fitted with gss panes that curved slightly to match the semi-circur shape of the building. Inside, past a rge entryway, the building was divided up into a single central hallway, and rooms down each side.

  Vellenia opened the very st door on the right and gestured inside.

  Now, for just one moment I was certain she was going to give me a free conjugal visit to help me get my hormone under control. Then, after blowing me or offering up a hole I hadn’t seen yet, she would take me to the actual thing she wanted me to see. And that wasn’t just pure fantasy either; the room she indicated seemed far too small to hold any patients. Initially.

  It stood full of wooden boxes stuffed with straw, and each one of those boxes held a rge egg in splotches of mint green and white.

  “Ah,” I said.

  They weren’t all mint green and white, though, I noted this almost immediately, something was wrong. The eggs all had brown spots on their shells. Some of these were hardly noticeable, just little rotten dots. Others were half covered by the brown stuff.

  “These are our eggs,” she said. “They will eventually hatch into Marshells.”

  Secretly, I sent a mental thank you to Rus for helping to name all these things. Even though it was a shame these eggs were sick, the names Marshin and Marshell were so goofy and delightful, to say nothing of the genius Slinktickle.

  “Please see to the Healer’s supplies,” Vellenia told my two compatriots. “Regina knows the way to the rockidna called Muppin. I will confer with the Healer in the meantime.”

  Regina and Isabelle shared a look before heading off.

  Leaving me alone with this gorgeous creature.

  “What can you tell me about this situation with the eggs?” I asked, happy to keep the topic off nudity, my hormone, or how she’d offered to mate with me.

  “The problem began some weeks ago,” she said. “None of the eggs were hatching on time. It was discovered that several of them had these discolorations. We attempted to isote these from the others, but all of them eventually developed the simir discolorations.”

  “This is an even bigger shame, because the nest wardens abandoned the eggs to avoid possibly catching the affliction. These eggs need to be stimuted constantly in order to help them hatch healthy and strong.”

  “How long ago did the… other event begin?”

  “Only two days past,” she responded, surveying her nude body. “Honestly, the only real inconvenience has been the inability to carry objects we use in every day life. Our trade beads cannot be carried on bracelets. A great deal of jade beads simply vanished.”

  “I doubt the two are reted, but I’d like to inspect the eggs first. It seems like a much more pressing concern.”

  Her face brightened at the prospect of having the eggs hatch. She cpped her hands together in front of her face in a way I associated with little children. She grinned and blushed, showing two perfect rows of teeth.

  “I am so pleased to finally have a Healer with our vilge,” Vellenia said. “You will be given whatever the vilge has avaible to assist in your duties.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  Her eyes opened wide, raking the length of my body. “Including assistance with your hormone.”

  “It’s not…” I started, but she held up a hand to forestall me.

  “I have been given to understand that mating between humans is an experience to be prized. It grants a great deal of pleasure to the humans in question.”

  “That’s true, but—“

  “Say no more, friend Fletcher. I am honored to relieve you of your hormone. My people have only ever seen a handful of humans, and it will be my pleasure to serve you in whatever capacity I can. If that means mating, I am only too happy to mate with you. And in doing so, I will know how pleasurable the experience is.” As she was talking, she ran her fingers down the length of her torso towards the junction of her thighs. This was where white belly met green hips and thighs, like bikini underwear or a one piece swimsuit.” After all, your mating tool hasn’t retracted, and appears quite rge… possibly painful.”

  As she rubbed the insides of her thighs and over her crotch, the smooth area slowly separated out into lips that looked almost exactly like a pussy, though it was stark white.

  “It’s not… It actually never retracts.” I couldn’t keep my eyes off what she was doing.

  “Never retracts?” She seemed mortified, but didn’t stop rubbing up and down to either side of her magically appearing orifice. “How do you conduct every day tasks with your tool constantly swinging down there? Wait… what is happening?”

  Blood was rushing to my cock at what she was doing and her words.

  “It’s getting erect…” I said mely.

  “It grows even rger? Humans are a wonder to behold, friend Fletcher. How big… by the gods, it’s even rger.”

  As she spoke, she radiated with soft white light.

  Affinity check: You have the Identify skill at level 1. This check is easy difficulty. Would you like to spend 1 Token for an automatic success?

  Total Tokens: 5 Affinity and 6 Free Tokens.

  What the… I indicated that, no, I did not wish to spend Tokens on this check. My Affinity of 5 and Identify of 1 succeeded, but with only 1 success. I could generally expect 2 successes on 6 levels, so I’d done badly on my check.

  Identify worked, and informed me that Vellenia was using a quasi-empathic and psychic ability, Enhance Sensations. This would make sensory input for the chosen senses increase by a moderate amount.

  It then went on to mention that Healer’s Resistance would not be activated here, because it only provided a bonus to resisting sources of damage. This wasn’t a source of damage.

  Durability check: You do not have the associated skill for this check. This check is Moderate difficulty. Would you like to spend 2 Tokens for an automatic success?

  Total Tokens: 4 Durability and 6 Free Tokens.

  My mind raced. She was trying to influence my mind. I could feel a pulse of energy race into my mind and spread throughout my body. I could counter it, but it didn’t seem like she meant me any harm.

  “This will make you release your mating fluids even faster,” she said, her voice husky.

  This is Christopher utterly confused and utterly aroused at the same time.